[Durham INC] DRAFT August Minutes

[Pat Carstensen]

Please let me know about additions and corrections.  In particular, the folks from BPAC didn't sign in so I didn't get their names.  I will also be sending out correct July minutes.  Thanks, pat
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August
Delegate Meeting of the InterNeighborhood Council of Durham

NIS Conference Room, Golden Belt

August 28, 2012

 

Attending the meeting were:

Neighborhoods

Cross Counties – Pat Carstensen

Downing Creek – Rebecca Broad

Duke Park – Bill Anderson

Falconbridge Community
Association – Rosemarie Kitchin

Golden Belt – John Martin,
DeDreana Freeman

Lochaven Hills – Nate Brown

Long Meadow – Pakis Bessias

Northgate Park – Debra Hawkins

Old North Durham – Pete Katz

Old West Durham – Eric Heidt

Trinity Park – Philip Azar

Watts Hospital Hillandale – Tom
Miller, Mike Woodard

Wood Lake – Robbie Willmarth

Woodcroft – Scott Carter


 

Visitors 

Lynwood D. Best – City of
Durham, NIS

Dale McKeel – City of Durham,
Transportation Department

Jim Wise – News and Observer

Chris Dreps – ECWA 

3 members of BICYCLE +
Pedestrian Advisory Commission

 

John Martin called the meeting to order, and delegates and
visitors introduced themselves. 

 

Three members of the Community Engagement Committee of the
BICYCLE + Pedestrian Advisory Commission (BPAC) led a discussion on walking and biking in Durham.  BPAC is
a citizens group whose purpose it is to advise the City Council and Board of
County Commissioners on bicycle and pedestrian issues; it has 17
members (7 appointed by the city, 7 by the county and 3 liaisons from other
boards).   For more about
them, see http://www.bikewalkdurham.org/BPAC_about.html.  The Community Engagement Committee was
created to increase citizen participation in matters involving bicycle and
pedestrian questions by inventorying and prioritizing needs and developing and
telling stories to support these priorities.  The delegates to INC brought up a number of different
situations, such as the folks in motorized wheelchairs on the streets of Golden
Belt, the challenges of getting across some streets, and suburbs that are “walk
islands.”  They are interested in
coming to neighborhoods to lead discussions about the issues in a specific
area.

 

Dale McKeel, Bicycle
and Pedestrian Coordinator for the city’s Transportation Division, then gave a
presentation on Watch for Me NC, a
pedestrian safety education and enforcement campaign that started August
6.  
See http://www.watchformenc.org.  One aspect will be urging people to pay
better attention in parking lots, since 1/3 of reported accidents happened
there.  Only 18% of drivers yield
in crosswalks, which we are supposed to do.  

 

The Neighborhood Hero
event will be at Motorco on October 23 (this is our normal meeting date).  The time will be sent to the
list-serve.

 

The Membership Drive
Task Force has made a brochure and letter on why neighborhoods should join
INC and is contacting possible new members.   

 

The Old East Durham neighborhood wanted to know if other
groups are finding a lot of red tape when they try to use the Holton Center for their meetings.  The fee waiver process is a lot of work
if you are only having one meeting. 
Nothing conclusive was concluded.

 

As conveyed over the list-serve, there has been another case
of Post Office threats to get folks to move mailboxes to the curb. 
It is clear that this happens more in East Durham, but it isn’t clear if
this is due to targeting of low-wealth areas, more turnover of occupants, or
more effective opposition when there is a neighborhood list-serve. 

 

If you want to volunteer to be an officer, please talk to
Tom Miller, but the Nomination Committee
says it will have a full slate to propose in September.

 

The July minutes
were approved with a correction about the report from Watt Hospital Hillandale.

 

Announcements, reports, and miscellaneous news

·      
The stormwater facility at Duke Diet and Fitness is
still on the radar of neighboring neighborhoods.

·      
Northgate Park will have
two more food truck rodeos, the next one being 5-8PM on September 20.    

·      
Bill Anderson gave an update on the Durham Can You
Spare a Change campaign.  We worked
on this several years ago, and then our partners got busy on other things.  We have a lot of brochures, and the
Ninth Street Merchants are interested in passing them out.  The website mentioned in the brochure
needs to be updated; Bill and Rebecca Broad will work on it.

·      
Philip Azar brought up UC-2 versus UC zoning
district.  UC is a university and
college campus zone, including conditions for the transition areas, developed
for use for the Duke campus.  UC-2
is a less strict version being proposed, to be used for NCCU and Durham
Tech.  The issue is that since
there is no geographic limit in the code, everyone would use the more relaxed
UC-2 rules; the problem could be averted if the UC-2 zone could only be used
for public institutions. Several neighborhood folks had a productive meeting
with Steve Medlin, who said he would take the public/private distinction “under
advisement.”  Tom Miller proposed
the following resolution, which was seconded by Eric Heidt.  “INC urges the City and County to
distinguish between UC’s by having UC-2 exclusively for state-owned colleges
and universities.”  We will
continue to talk to the Planning Department, and vote on the resolution if we
need to in September.

·      
Philip Azar also discussed his continuing concern
that compact zones around transit stops will each need their own “character” of
restrictions, goals and so on.  The
good news is that each will go through its own process of approval, but it
still isn’t clear whether all with the same tier/density will have essentially
the same code.  Also, not all
neighborhoods may have the capacity to put enough “neighborhood weight” into
the discussion of the rules for their area.

 

 

 		 	   		  
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